She was so worried about his appearance that she summoned an attendant to investigate further. The Sun Flying Club wasn't really a "flying" club. Infantino, 47, is an independent insurance broker in San Antonio, a few minutes' drive from home in Dade City. It became his navigation beacon. Angelo Donadeo, Patricia R Georgia, Adrianne Ann Hamilton, Jennifer Larsen, Thomas Mulcahy, Mercedes V Ruiz, Beverly Jean Raposa, Trudy J Smith, Sue F. Tibbs, Sharon R Transue, Dorothy M Warnock. Stephanie Rae Stanich 11/10/48 This site uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic. In recent months Canti and others have made pilgrimages to Bud's screened door to hear his story. It was, in fact, the same plane that had the trouble in Mexico City. Samuel J. Prager 12/23/03 . Im sure they all ran away. She spit the words out quickly, doing her best to sound convincing. Survivors described a flash or spark that exploded through the cabin as the jet ripped apart. Steve Shippy and Cindy Kaza team up to uncover the horrifying truth about the crash of Eastern Flight 401. The Department of Technology, Management and Budget supports the business operations of the state agencies through a variety of services including Information Technology project delivery, maintenance and support. Jerrold Solomon, who had walked away from the crash unscathed, flew home to New York three days later. Fara Infantino 12/7/46 | Hey!" His 1977 book, Crash, tells the story of many of the passengers, the investigation and aftermath of Flight 401. Ann Connell, Barry Connell, Angelo Donadeo, Patricia R Georgia, Adrianne Ann Hamilton, Jennifer Larsen, Thomas Mulcahy, Mercedes V Ruiz, Beverly Jean Raposa, Trudy J Smith, Sue F. Tibbs, Sharon R Transue, Dorothy M Warnock. In the end, it appears that the source of the stories was an article in an issue of the Flight Safety Foundation. Stefan Jay Rubin 3/21/49. He was honored again at the memorial service for the crash victims and their families on December 29th, 2007, and he led a procession of more than 100 airboats to the crash site from a launching site on the Tamiami Trail (US 41). Don Repo survived long enough to reach the hospital, but he also proved to be too badly injured. After we visually established where the crash site was located, we could see the initial ground contact point and the distribution of the wreckage quite clearly. Top Left: The girls of Flight 401. Loose chunks of lime rock cracked and popped under the tires as he crawled ahead. Old and sick now, he lives in near poverty on the edge of the Everglades. He saw tangled metal and smelled aviation fuel. Viewers who enter The Ghost of Flight 401 looking for shivers and thrills might be disappointed. The bronze plaques are being donated as well as the granite base. He likes to think about those days. Edward was also sent to Florida to build Trap and Skeet gun clubs in some southern states, he always maintained that the clubs were 20 years ahead of their time. The third, Repo, used a porthole to try and get a visual on the gear. One of them attracted . NOTE - There is no official death certificates for "Mrs. McAvoy," which appeared in passenger lists released to the press at the time. The only thing she was looking forward to on arrival in Miami was going to bed. While all this was very much in the public domain, reports circulated that aircraft engineers quietly removed any materials they had reused from the crash. Frightened, they called the flight deck, and the flight engineer came down to have a look for himself. Edward E. Ulrich died at home on May 25, 2021. Back row from the left: Mercy Ruiz, Sue Tebbs, Adrienne Hamilton, Trudy Smith. Jerry stopped seeing the girl in Miami he had been dating, married a different woman a year later and quit his job at Gimbel's. She had no first-aid kit. The image of Repo said "Watch out for fire on this airplane," and then disappeared. It would be hard to make up a plausible story like Ronald Infantino's -- too sad, too joyful. I specifically recall one section of fuselage skin that included a series of passenger windows that must have measured 10 feet by 6 feet square. It's like it's a charm," she said. The following is a list of survivors and victims of Eastern Air Lines Flight 401. Continue Reading: Survivor Stories and Memorial Efforts. Bud's heroics were featured prominently a few days later in the Miami Herald. theYear = now.getYear() Officially, 103 passengers and crew died. Later on during the flight though, problems with the engine all stemmed from a fire that no-one knew about. The pilot of this flight was so unnerved by all of this that he canceled the flight. Captain Bob Loft is often earmarked as the notorious subject of this haunting, but the truth is that Don Repo is far more active and more regularly witnessed. It was a solemn and sobering return flight. Flight crews and passengers on other similar aircraft in the Eastern Air Lines fleet came forward with stories of sightings of Bob Loft and Don Repo. Cite this article: Blackness. The Everglades is flat, covered with tall saw grass and immersed in water that ranges from a few inches deep to three to four feet deep in some areas. Suddenly, he stopped. At the time, the decision to change seats carried no meaning. Bob Loft appeared before the Vice President of Eastern Air Lines in First Class. Two passing pilots saw it and called the airport. Gas gangrene attacked his lungs. But one other very important thing we learn from Serling's history of Eastern Air Lines is that the central claim of Fuller's book that ghosts accompanied the salvaged pieces of Flight 401 installed in other planes is false. This is the story about the night a jumbo jet landed among the pig frogs and alligators, the cottonmouth snakes and yellow-crowned night herons, in the Everglades. Around 4:30 a.m., Leonhard waded up to a willow heada thick tangle of weepy trees with brittle limbs draping into the water. When the Coast Guard helicopter attempted a landing, the prop wash threw hunks of debris dangerously around. However, by the time the pilots realized their situation it was too late; flight 401 impacted the Everglades in a left turn and began to disintegrate, the wreckage being strewn over an area of 50 square kilometers. New York: Atheneum, 1977. At the time, it was one of the worst civil aviation disasters the country had ever seen. We had a habit of informally gathering at the clubhouse on Friday and Saturday evenings to down a few beers and catch up on all the news that had any impact on us. . So, being the thoughtful brother-in-law he was, unbeknownst to me he had collected some of the wreckage of Flight 401. Join our emailing list to keep up to date with the latest. 2022 TV-14. James followed all of the rules and more often than not, brought home venison for the family each deer season. Eastern Airlines Flight #401 (L1011 N310EA) . Huge gouts of mud and aquatic vegetation shot high into the air as 185 tons of screeching metal ripped into the muck and grass. Sharon Norene Gatti 3/2/48 Even though I didn't own an airplane, the club members considered me one of their own, a privilege that I treasure and respect to this day, despite the fact that I haven't had any involvement with the club since the late 1970s. Theyll find us eventually., Raposa had the survivors scoot together, sitting back to back so they could stay warm. Some of those he saved were there, including flight attendants Mercy Ruiz and Sue Tebbs, as well as Beverly Raposa, the flight attendant who rallied passengers to safety after the crash. Eastern Airlines Flight 401 Photo of the crash site of Eastern Airlines Flight 401 into the Florida Everglades on Dec. 29, 1972. Then an alarm chimed, signaling a 250-foot drop. With determination born of her Portuguese grandparents work ethic and her work on a 160-acre dairy farm as a young girl growing up in Rhode Island, the former Girl Scout troop leader shouted, Im a stewardess. He was left wearing nothing but a necktie and belt pushed up under his armpits. Ghosts of Flight 401. The control tower at Opa locka shut down at 11pm each evening back then so the L1011 had to be in contact with Miami Approach Control, since we assumed it was ultimately being vectored for an approach to MIA. Water saturated by jet fuel filled his boots, burning his legs. His wife Nancy - they married when she was 15 - could always tell when it was on his mind, though. 2017. "That wasn't my first brush with death," he said. Interment will follow at 2pm at Florida National Cemetery. Incredibly, we found a man sitting alone on a small tussock. Bud and Nancy own 27 domestic cats, including 15 that live indoors on sofas, tables and bookshelves. The government considered him totally disabled. "It needs new points and plugs, maybe a new set of rings. Above Left - Ron Infantino stands among survivors. I was coping with someone who was disabled. Then he tells the story the best he can. Still, $50,000 will have to be raised in order to erect the memorial. The crash site of Eastern Airlines Flight 401 into the Florida Everglades on Dec. 29, 1972. His foot pressed lightly against the accelerator pedal as he inched down the south levee on the L-28 canal with his headlights off. They were both 26 years old. One of the world's newest and flashiest airliners, a Lockheed L-1011 TriStar, was making one of its first flights for Eastern Air Lines on December 29, 1972. Tower, this is Eastern 401, it looks like were going to have to circle. theYear = theYear + 1900 There were bodies that were naked, which we all figured occurred because they had been flung out of the protected environmental cocoon of the L1011 into 200 mph winds when the fuselage broke up. Wrong. 17 Mar. Eastern Air Lines Lockheed L-1011 TriStar 1. It was the first of the new generation of wide-body "jumbo jets" to crash. Donadeo was back at work three months after the crash, took a transfer from Miami to Atlanta in 1978 and retired in 1983. He retired from the Metro-Dade police department and moved to Brooksville, Florida many years ago. Four years after the crash, there was no such thing as convenient access to the photos for the average person. The pilot Bob Loft and the flight engineer Don Repo were two of the 101 people who perished in the air crash. Eastern Air Lines flight 401 encountered no problems while cruising between the two cities. This just the beginning. "He swore that Frank Borman had paid him to come to Miami and perform an exorcism on #318. He shut down the engine again to listen. He died in Milford Hospital, Milford CT, in September 1973, though its difficult to know if it was as a result of his crash injuries. AlanNachmias 5/16/50 Albert J. Stockstill 6/9/33 What happened next must have happened very quickly. I have to wonder why the U. S. Coast Guard has never awarded Bud . He wanted me to be the pilot (no objection from me) and he would occupy the co-pilot's seat. Forgotten about him, actually. The explanation soon became clear: the apparitions were always on aircraft that contained equipment salvaged from Flight 401. In his investigations talking with various airline employees (which occupy most of the book), he discovered the likely reason: According to the flight crew, who were highly reluctant to discuss it, Don Repo had appeared in the cockpit and talked them through the landing. DALLAS - December 29, 2022, will mark a half-century since the fatal crash of Eastern Air Lines (EA) Flight 401. Combined with numerous anonymous witnesses and countless tales, the rumors spread throughout the aviation community. She was whipped. Rochelle Rubin 1/5/48 (she was the first victim discovered by the search team His hunting escapades on his air boat meant that he was very familiar with the area where Flight 401 crashed in the Everglades. Nery Palma 7/12/34 FSF. Flight attendants of flight 401. Fortunately, Bud was an expert. Raposa was struggling for ideas to keep her group occupied. Fuller's book was soon made into a popular TV movie, also called The Ghost of Flight 401, notable for having creeped people out for years. My mother never told me the flight attendant's name, but she did say that she had suffered a broken back in the crash. Not long after, "ghosts" of Loft and Repo were seen on more than twenty occasions by crew members on other Eastern Tri-Stars, especially those planes which had been fitted with parts salvaged from the Flight 401 wreckage. 490-492. A trio of newly minted Rolls-Royce turbofan jet engines made a rumble that could barely be heard by the 163 passengers and 13 crew members seated inside the spacious cabin and reconfigured cockpit. A mass of interesting testimony was produced as a result. Serling, R. From the Captain to the Colonel: An Informal History of Eastern Airlines. Flashlights became part of the standard equipment; flight attendants now have shoulder harnesses whether their seats face forward or backward; the acoustic alerts given to pilots to advise them of changes to the autopilot settings were dramatically improved; and the groundwork was laid for what later became the science of Cockpit Resource Management, which aims to minimize human error by codifying communication, leadership, and decision making in the cockpit. Johnson, Charles | New York: Dial Press, 1980. Adelaide Geneve Bearman 9/21/22 Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 was on its final approach into Miami shortly before midnight 50 years ago this month when a single light bulb on the aircraft's instrument panel failed to illuminate . Mysterious Universe I didn't tell him that it felt really strange realizing that so much of the plane was still out in the glades. The wreckage of Eastern Air Lines flight 401 lies in the Florida Everglades after the crash. 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